


Astronomy

by adventurepants



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-24
Updated: 2010-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-24 20:37:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adventurepants/pseuds/adventurepants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They always end up on the back porch looking at the stars, anyway.  [Deleted scene from <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/261031">Not In Death, But Just In Sleep</a>.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Astronomy

It’s been four days since Sam woke up, and Jack and Lizzie have been kicked out of Cheyenne Mountain by Sam herself. It’s a new routine they’ve developed: Jack and Lizzie hang around the infirmary for as long as Sam will let them, until she tells them in the sternest voice she can muster (which varies depending on how long it’s been since the last time Janet gave her any pain medicine) that Lizzie needs to be taken home and put to bed.

Jack means to enforce a structured, healthy sleep schedule for his daughter, he really does, but they always end up on the back porch looking at the stars, anyway. He starts out trying to point out constellations, and teach her their names, but she likes making up her own even better. He likes it too, the way she’ll curl up against his side on the porch swing in her monkey pajamas, and point to the sky.

“There’s a tiara,” she says. “Like Aunt Vala has.”

He looks where she’s pointing, and he can almost see it, the twinkling points of a tiara in the black expanse above them. “Think she’ll try to add that one to her collection?”

Lizzie giggles. “She can’t get it out of the sky, Daddy!”

“Oh, let’s not put it past her to try,” he answers. Lizzie laughs again, and Jack wonders how he could possibly have gotten so lucky as to have that sound in his life every day.

They’re quiet for a little while, just watching the sky, and then Lizzie wiggles a bit, and presses herself against Jack more closely. “Daddy?”

“Hm?”

“When’s Mommy coming home?”

Jack takes a moment to remember what day it is, and then, fairly certain that it’s Sunday, answers, “Just a few more days. She’ll be home before you know it.”

Lizzie sighs, a sound so small and discouraged that Jack pulls her into his lap, mumbling “Come here,” and wraps his arms around her.

She hugs back, and tells him, voice muffled against his shoulder, “I miss her being home.”

“Me too,” he agrees, and kisses the top of her head. It’s disconcerting, he thinks, how _odd_ it is not to have Sam right beside him when he goes to bed at night. He spent plenty of years sleeping alone, before Sara and after, and it was fine. And even after he and Sam finally sorted themselves out, there was no shortage of nights that Sam spent off-world, before they adopted Lizzie, and none of those nights were nearly as unpleasant as these.

 _It’s because you could have lost her forever, this time_ , a quiet voice says inside of him, and he swallows it down, willing those dark thoughts away.

“I like when we’re all together,” Lizzie says, pushing that voice inside Jack even farther away. “It’s easier to fall asleep.”

By now, Jack is no longer startled when his daughter’s thoughts align so closely with his own. He’s not sure how, but sometimes Lizzie is just as much like him as Charlie had been. “It is, isn’t it?” he says, and Lizzie nods, still holding onto him.

“Do you think Mommy has trouble falling asleep without us, too?”

Jack is pretty sure that whatever pain killers she’s getting from Janet make it pretty easy to fall asleep regardless of her surroundings, so he selects his answer carefully, yet truthfully. “I think she doesn’t like being away from you as much as you don’t like being home without her.”

“I’m glad you’re here though, Daddy,” Lizzie says, as if she’s afraid she’ll hurt his feelings.

He smiles. “I’m glad you’re here too, Liz,” he says, and he is- he’s immeasurably grateful to have his little girl there to keep him company. “Now let’s get you to bed. Your mom will be able to tell if I let you stay up too much later, and we don’t want to make her mad, do we?”

Lizzie shakes her head. Jack gently removes her from his lap and stands, and Lizzie, suddenly drowsy, holds out her arms as a request for Jack to carry her. He obliges, and as he’s carrying her into the house, she suddenly stops him. “Wait!”

“What is it?”

“There,” she says, pointing at the sky over his shoulder.

He turns around. “You see something?”

“Yes!” she cries excitedly. “It’s a person, next to the tiara! I think it’s Mommy.”

He squints, trying to connect the dots into a shape resembling a human.

“Can you see her?”

“I think so,” he says. “Maybe. As long as I don’t blink.”

“She’s there,” Lizzie says, resolutely. “It’s a picture of her in the sky so she can be with us even when she’s not home.”

Jack turns again and resumes carrying Lizzie inside. “You remember where those stars are, okay? We’ll show her, when we bring her home.”

“I’ll remember,” Lizzie promises, sounding sleepy again.

Jack puts her to bed and tucks her in, telling her they’ll go see Mommy tomorrow as soon as he picks her up from school.

He sleeps much more soundly that night.


End file.
